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- "We wanted to go home, but we…
"We wanted to go home, but we were not allowed to."
Translation:Vi ville gå hem, men det fick vi inte.
32 Comments
Det is simply the object of the second clause, replacing “gå hem”, so that you wouldn’t repeat yourself from the first clause. You can rephrase the English here to match it a bit more closely: "We wanted to go home, but we were not allowed to do that." (i.e. we were not allowed to go home). English needs the verb to do here if you add the object, though.
On behalf of your other question, I’d also like to know! The answer “...men vi fick inte det” is also accepted. Would “...men vi fick det inte” also be or does inte have to go after the verb?
1178
"vi ville åka hem" är fel, det måste vara "vi ville gå hem", men jag förstår inte varför jag har inte rätt! Jag har alltid sagt "jag åker hem"!
2026
nobody says that we must "walk home" it says "go home" which means that it can be by car by train or bus for example so "vi ville åka hem men vi fick inte" should be accepted in my opinion
I tried "vi ville hem men det fick vi inte" but it wasn't accepted.
Last week, I learned how "gå" isn't necessary with "måste" (Vi måste hem nu), and in the discussion for that sentence, https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/6590040, Ezra746950 asked whether this applies to other modals, then Ezra quoted Arnauti as saying the following, but there's not actually any post from Arnauti with this:
There is a handful of verbs, all of them modal verbs, that can behave this way – ska or vill are the ones I can think of right now. Jag vill hem means 'I want to go home' Jag ska hem means 'I am going home, I am headed home'. "
1453
Yes, that's interesting. It's quite alright to say vi ville hem meaning 'we wanted to go/get home', but you can't add a second clause like this because then the verb fick in it has nothing to refer to. Like, we weren't allowed to – what? So either Vi ville gå hem men det fick vi inte or something like Vi ville hem men vi fick inte gå hem (which doesn't sound great because hem is repeated, so in reality you'd be more likely to hear Vi ville hem men fick inte gå 'We wanted to go home but weren't allowed to go/leave*).
I wrote "... men vi fick det inte.", but it was marked wrong. I read this sentence construction (same order of subject verb object as in a main clause after "men ...") sometimes in the news like here: https://www.unt.se/sport/linjespelarna-dominerade-i-skakig-vm-start-5463376.aspx . Why does duolingo mark it as wrong?
In German you could translate "... but we were not allowed to." with: 1) ... aber DAS durften wir nicht. (emphasis on the DAS/object using inverted subject / object order like in the provided Swedish duolingo solution: "... men det fick vi inte") 2) ... aber wir DURFTEN das nicht. (emphasis on the "not allowed to" using normal word order, Swedish equivalent: "... men vi fick det inte")
In Swedish there is even a third variant: "... men vi fick inte det", which is not possible in German by translating directly as "... aber wir durften nicht das" is incomplete (unclear "das"), but would be possible to translate as "... aber wir durften nicht (gehen)".
Could somebody explain the nuances in meaning of all three variants, please? And if I and some news outlets are wrong using variant 2, explain why that is the case? If variant 2 is uncommon or unidiomatic, it would be good to have kind of a "yellow/warning" evaluation with some explanation why instead of getting it marked instantly wrong without any explanation why (although it is grammatically correct + a correct translation, although not "native"). I think any Swedish person would understand it, though might be a bit surprised by the "non native"/uncommon phrasing.
Swedish and German are actually very similar here: men det fick vi inte emphasises the det as you describe in German, and men vi fick inte det emphasises the fick as you also say.
However, men vi fick det inte is not grammatical in Swedish. The example you found has inte riktigt, not just inte, so the inte is part of another construction and doesn't apply here.
Obviously, you'd still be understood, but it's not correct.